Friday, September 26, 2008

Why get a big, fat newspaper delivered to you every day, when you can get an e-mail every morning with the top headlines for the day, when you can subscribe to an RSS feed and watch developments with ease with a utility like Google Reader, when you can log online to your favorite news site and see breaking news as it happens?

All great technological advancements for the industry. But that's just the beginning.

How would you like to type in your address and have a little map, showing the latest news around your very own neighborhood? Or read a story about something going on in your neighborhood, and be able to see an advertisement for a local business just a few blocks away from you?

Chi-Town Daily News is experimenting with such technology. It's an online-only newspaper in Chicago where I'm interning this school quarter.

And then there's EveryBlock. You put in an address, and not only will it show you news in the area (1 block away, 3 blocks away, or 8 blocks away from the address you give - you choose), it'll show restaurants, other happenings, and even the latest crime from that area according to the local police department. It's only in select cities right now, but one of them is in Chicago, hence how I found out about it.

Hyperlocal at its best. This type of technology is clearly the technology of the future for online journalism.

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I'm a 24-year-old Buffalo, N.Y. native currently living in New York City and working with The Huffington Post. My primary interests are journalism, new media, technology, genealogy, and sports. I'm also a big fan of Twitter, and you can follow me here.